


Extra-Ordinary Extracts

by JJWay



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Childhood, Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven, F/M, Family Dynamics, Growing Up, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Passive-aggression, Past Child Abuse, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Love, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 14:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJWay/pseuds/JJWay
Summary: My name is Vanya Hargreeves and this is my story.Extracts from Extra-Ordinary involving the family's relationships with one another.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing that I've written completely that has not been Marvel in a very long time!
> 
> I read the comics as a teenager, some seven years ago, so already had a cannon in mind by the time the series came out, so this pulls from both the comics and the series. Like my favourite scene in the comics was always Five saying "You know something Vanya? I never liked you." So Five and Vanya do not have a relationship in this like they're shown to in the series.
> 
> Also, I know some people are against the relationships in The Umbrella Academy, but if Gerard Way says it's okay then it is :) But they won't appear heavily in this.

On October 1st 1989 43 women around the world gave birth to 43 extraordinary children. It was extraordinary for none of these women had been pregnant when the day first began. I was one of those children. Sir Reginald Hargreeves, world-renowned scientist and wealthy entrepreneur, Olympic gold medallist and Nobel Peace Prize holder, adopted seven of these children, myself and my siblings, and as stated above, we were all extraordinary with powers no other human possessed. Well, all accept me.

I was different from my siblings, I was ordinary. I often thought my father had made a mistake in adopting me, maybe my birth had been normal, and maybe my mother had been pregnant for the past nine month and just simply didn’t know it. No matter the circumstance, I grew up in what the world came to know as The Umbrella Academy, an outcast in my own home, within my own family.

The world knew The Umbrella Academy, they knew when Number Five disappeared, they knew when Number Six died, and they knew when the group disbanded. But really, for all they cheered outside my house, for all they had posters and lunchboxes with my siblings faces on them, for the figures and comic books they collected, they do not know my family, and they do not know me.

My name is Vanya Hargreeves and this is my story.


	2. A Brief Introduction

Let me start by introducing you to my family, my true family, not the one you think you know, not the one you saw on TV or that posed in magazines. The people they were behind the closed doors of The Umbrella Academy.

Number 00.01, Spaceboy, Luther Hargreeves   
Number 00.02, The Kraken, Diego Hargreeves   
Number 00.03, The Rumor, Allison Hargreeves   
Number 00.04, The Séance, Klaus Hargreeves   
Number 00.05, Five   
Number 00.06, The Horror, Ben Hargreeves   
Number 00.07, Vanya Hargreeves

Until the age of six we did not have names, just numbers. I was never entirely sure how our father decided which number he assigned to us, but it was widely agreed it was a rank. Luther believed it was a rank on who was the best all round, putting him in first place and Diego always trying to outdo him, leaving myself, powerless, of course last. Five believed it was based on who our father liked the most, Luther was the favourite after all, something he never failed to remind us all of, and our father had never been fond of either Five or Ben.

Five didn’t care about the ranking and when it came to being assigned our own names, he decided to reject our Mom and instead embraced his number. I remember being named quite clearly, how each of my siblings beamed with pride as they tested the word on their tongue.

They each got a say in their names, Number 1 wanted something strong and so got Luther, meaning army; Number 2 wanted something to represent his clearly Mexican roots, Diego; Number 3 wanted something pretty and feminine, Allison, and I know now this means noble, which makes me laugh as my sister was anything but; Number 4 had jumped at Allison’s name and decided he wanted something with a ‘L’ sound in it aswell, and so got Klaus; Number 6 wanted something much like himself, short and sweet, and was affectionately given Ben. Our Mom had stumbled when she came to me, unable to think of anything, and my younger self tried desperately not to feel upset at that. It was Ben in the end that had suggested a name for me, at the time he had been reading Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, and upon bringing it up and saying he liked that one, it was the name I embraced.

Our father refused to acknowledge us by our new names, but outside of training he refused to acknowledge us very much at all. Any affection we got in that house came from a robot we saw as our mother called Grace, but whom we all referred to as Mom. Mom was designed at first as a babysitter for myself while my siblings went to train, but everyone else quickly formed a relationship with her; none more so than Diego. Diego loved Mom in a way the rest of us did not, and often simply refused to see her as a robot while it was always in the back of our minds for the rest of us. Ben and Five on the opposite end of this never viewed her as anything but a robot, Ben I believe just following suit with Five, as I caught him on more than one occasion sharing a hug with Mom. She was responsible for tucking us in at night, read stories to us, cleaned up after us and made us cookies whenever we were sad. The perfect mother you might say, but there was also a coldness to her that came naturally with being a robot. Her perfect smile and lifeless eyes sometimes left me a little unnerved.

Then there was Pogo, a chimp our father had genetically engineered to walk on two legs and speak English, the creation he had received his Noble Prize for. Pogo was a teacher to us all, in the literal sense. While our father trained my siblings, Mom took care of us, Pogo would guide us through lessons normal children undertook, English, Maths, History, Music, etc. I had quite a close relationship with Pogo growing up as I spent more time with him than anyone else, having more lessons than the rest of my siblings when they had extra training sessions or went on long missions. There was no novelty in having a monkey as a teacher to me growing up, but I find a sadness looking back now and realizing my only true human relationship was with someone who was not human at all.

My siblings always had personality clashes, even from a young age. Early on I was separated from everyone else either by my father or pushed out by my siblings, and Ben and Five had separated themselves from the rest early on iswell. Allison and Klaus paired off and their relationship was something I envied as a child despite how awful they often treated each other, both of them very alike in ways that clashed. Diego hated Luther, but the two of them spent more time with one another than anyone else, if only to try and prove themselves better than the other.

I don’t believe Luther hated Diego, I don’t believe he hated any of us, but he certainly cared more about being the leader, about being Number 1, than he did about his family. As I’ve stated, Luther was our father’s favourite, this was said to be due to the way he exceled at everything our father threw at him, his dedication to the Umbrella Academy and his ruthless leadership skills. Truthfully, it’s because he was easily manipulated. Luther loved our father, and after we all left he was the only one that stayed. I pity him, raised to be the perfect child, to follow orders blindly and to care more about the next mission than living his own life. I hope my brother reads this, and I hope it spurs him into leaving that man, but I already know it won’t. Luther is too loyal, too scared to be anything other than perfect in the eyes of a man that does not truly care for him in the way he believes he does.

Diego always strived to be Number 1, always resentful of being Number 2, but unlike Luther he had an independence that our father hated. My brother always thought that he was less than Luther, that maybe if he tried a little harder, if he pushed a little more, that one day he’d get our father’s approval and he’d get the title of Number 1 that he’d always craved. I knew better. I knew exactly why our father had put Diego in second place, and it had nothing to do with his lack of skills, or lack of ability. It was because Diego had a mind of his own, and it was something that I always admired in him while our father punished him for it. That’s not to say Diego was without fault; he was reckless, often to the point of compromising a mission, and very much a hot head, something that when it didn’t result in a fight with either Luther or Five, myself and Ben were more often on the receiving end of. I was closest to Diego of all my siblings, he often sought me out after a fight with Luther when Mom was preoccupied. We had a shared interest in music, and Diego was happy enough to lay back and listen to me play the violin for hours on end.

What to say of Allison? You probably know her better than any of my siblings from the movies she’s been in, now an A-list in Hollywood. She always wanted to be in the spotlight, to have all the attention on her, and she got it, being the only girl in the Umbrella Academy. My father disliked Allison, he described her as an insufferable, narcissistic creature, but her powers redeemed her, incredibly useful and gaining her a spot at Number 3. Allison liked to be beautiful, liked to be liked, to be praised, and since she wasn’t getting it at home, she did it in the magazines. While my brothers would drag their heels when they had to be interviewed, Allison would spend hours deciding what to wear, practising her smile and her answers, all more fake than the last. My sister built her life on lies, and when I see her on TV or posing in a celebrity magazine, I don’t even bother to wonder if she lied to get herself where she is. I know she did.

Klaus was perhaps the child my father was most disappointed in, always said Klaus had more ability than he knew and that his fretful temperament held him back. Father experimented on him the most, and this led to Klaus being the most damaged out of all of my siblings, something that I see quite clearly but maybe the rest of them don’t. The rest of my siblings were more willing to use their abilities, to gain better control, to improve, from Allison who adored her powers to Ben who hated them, but Klaus showed little interest. Still, he was Number 4, because our father saw the potential in him, and never stopped trying to pull it out of him. Klaus was like Allison and wanted to be the centre of attention and was just as happy to pose for photos. He had always been flamboyant, the loudest and most colourful of all my siblings, border lining on annoying. From the age of twelve Klaus started drinking, started smoking, finding illegal highs to suppress his powers. When I left the academy, I had not seen my brother sober since he was fifteen.

Number Five got on our father’s nerves. Five presented himself as a maths genius from a young age, and he was different from the rest of us in that he did not want or need our father’s approval; as far as he was concerned his intellect made him better than us, our father included. Five was arrogant and often cruel with his sharp comments, directed at us all but Ben. With Ben he was softer, gentler, and it was a rarity to see one without the other. That was until he disappeared. I don’t to this day know what happened to Five, and our father had described it as ‘no great loss’ as he hung a portrait of him above the fireplace.

Ben, the sweetest of all my siblings, the one I can with confidence say we all collectively liked. He was seen as the younger brother to all my siblings, despite us all being the same age, because he was shorter than the rest, even myself until he reached his growth spurt, which still left him inches below Allison. Ben was like Five, he was smarter than the rest of us and he knew it, though he wasn’t as arrogant. He was the first to learn to read and write, and was always reading, getting through a 500 page book before breakfast. That’s not to say that Ben was perfect, he was just as damaged as the rest of my siblings. Ben did not want to be on top like Luther, Diego or Five, nor did he need attention like Klaus or Allison; Ben just couldn’t be on his own, an inability that sometimes came across as needy and desperate. Ben was afraid of his powers, and I believe the rest of us were afraid of it too. Father once described Ben as ‘gruesome but fascinating. Must learn to suppress my nausea in order to study further’. It was no secret that our father disliked Ben, but Ben was always so eager to train, I think it was a desire to have control over the thing that scared him the most, and our father gave him the least training out of all our siblings. And maybe this was what resulted in his demise.


	3. Being Extra-Ordinary

Our father never missed an opportunity to remind me that I was ordinary. A hard thing for a little girl to hear. If you’re raised to believe nothing about you is special, if the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you’re not?

There was a lot that separated my siblings from the rest of the world, being emotionally stunned was only one of them, but the main thing was their power, the one thing I did not have which made me so different to those around me and so similar to the rest of the world I was separated from.

I was involved in a lot of my siblings’ training, which perhaps put me in a position to know their powers and their limits better than they did. Training took place every day and varied from my siblings practising their personal powers, combat training, stealth training, mission practice, endurance, and some might call it torture. Our father wanted them to be warriors, there was no time to be children.

Maybe you already know the powers my siblings were born with, but if you don’t, let me explain.

Luther had strength, resilience and a dedication to succeed that made him excel at everything. Diego has the ability to hold his breath indefinitely and is able to manipulate the trajectory of anything he throws, most used when knife wielding. Allison can manipulate people through the power of a rumour, whatever she says about a person will become reality, and our father believed with enough practice she could bend reality itself. Klaus never reached his full potential, but he was able to see spirits and conjure the dead, and also showed some promise in telekinesis and levitation that he never learnt to harness. Five could move through space and time, and teleport in what he called ‘spatial jumps’; it seems simple enough but how exactly Five’s powers worked used to confuse me, in part due to how he used to explain how they worked with references to quantum physic and the fabric of reality, an explanation I’m sure he used for no other reason than to make us feel stupid. Ben himself was a portal for which he was able to summon eldritch creature from another dimension, this more often appeared as tentacles emerging through his stomach.

My siblings received different levels of training from our father, Klaus getting the most and Ben getting the least. The training my father gave Klaus never led anywhere, and I later learnt that Ben had been taught how to control his power by Five, who had seemed fascinated by Ben’s ability, the only one that was apparently. Luther and Diego both trained extra by themselves outside of their designated training slots with dad, and Allison reveled in training, as she had full control of her powers and loved any type of praise that was sent her way.

In the various group physical training sessions my siblings would undergo it was always Luther, Diego and Five that came out on top with Ben always last and Klaus not that far in front of him.

When it came to combat training Luther was often paired with Ben to try and push his ability; Ben was the weakest and Luther took pity on him, never going against him with his full strength. Of course, if Ben were allowed to use his powers in combat training, no one would stand a chance against him, the monsters he called forth were ruthless and unforgiving. On the few occasions Ben had called forth a monster to help or defend him our father had quickly called off the match and punished Ben harshly.

The rest of my siblings were good fighters, but were often being scolded for fighting dirty. When Five and Diego would fight they both came away bloody, both happy to unleash as much pent up frustration as they could on the other and cause as much damage as possible. After Five had disappeared Ben and Diego were pit against one another which resulted, alarmingly quick, in Diego breaking Ben’s nose and it still bleeding hours later. Klaus and Allison as best friends often resulted in just hair pulling, neither really wanting to hurt the other, and so were separated to fight one of their brothers instead who would not hold back.

Then came endurance training. How far can you run before fatigue sets in? How many pull ups can you do before your arms go to jelly? How much of a beating can you withstand before you can no longer stand? How much blood can you lose before you pass out? How much hurt can you take before you’re willing to tell the enemy everything?

It didn’t seem odd to me growing up, the tortures my family endured were just a part of daily life and it wasn’t until I came out into the real world, saw how normal people reacted to this that I realized how much of a monster our father was. That my siblings before even reaching their teens had learnt how to become numb to pain, learnt how to take a beating, a broken bone or a stab wound and simply walk it off. I don’t think my siblings knew it was wrong at the time either.

Our father was always making notes on us, our house was full of surveillance cameras and our father even monitored us while we were asleep. I got to read some of his notes on one our sleep patterns, Klaus had no activity, Allison would talk in her sleep and Ben would cry in his. We were constantly being watched, being monitored. So our father knew when we sneaked out, when my siblings fought and when they did things they should not have done, and he didn’t care. Because we were experiments and nothing more.


	4. Family Dynamic

We were never really a family. We were out father’s creation, family in name but not in fact. Father, Mother, Brother, Sister; in our house they were just empty words. We were not raised as children, rather experiments, superheroes in training, and so we never really got that natural sibling closeness that normal families got. That’s not to say my siblings did not love each other, never mind how deep down it was hidden in some of them. At the end of the day, we were all we had, excluded from the rest of the world. Before Five left, the seven of us would sneak out to Griddy’s, a local donut shop, and eat donuts till we puked. It was fun and honestly some of the only fond memories I have as a child, as some of the rare occasions I felt apart of my family. Of course, a few excursions do not excuse a lifetime of being ignored.

Everyone had their favourites in the academy, and indeed who we hated the most, though they did not stay the same throughout the whole of our life there. The dynamic in the household came in three phrases, Before Five Disappeared, After Five Disappeared and After Ben Died. Perhaps it was due to the number of us, how we craved that one on one time with someone and desired to be the centre of someone’s attention, which had my siblings all splitting off into pairs.

I don’t recall how the original pairings formed, whether it was natural attraction or by design of our father, as the original pairings followed that of our numbers. One and Two, Three and Four, Five and Six, and Seven on her own.

The pairings were not concrete of course, my siblings did spend time in larger groups, did stray away from time to time from the person they were closest to. The followings describes simply the general dynamic.

** Before Five Disappeared  **

I mentioned previous how Diego hated Luther, but it wasn’t always that way, though even when they were close, it was less of a friendship and more of a rivalry, a tension created by our father from a young age. I am certain, if not for our father’s interference, of constantly comparing the two, that they might have stayed good friends.

Earlier in their relationship the two spent a great deal of time together, sparing in the gym, taking extra training lessons, and on occasion doing things a normal child would do, like playing childish games of pretend in the courtyard. The forced competition between them started early however, and the two were both still young when resentment began to rear it’s ugly head in Diego, and Luther further imposed his leadership. Luther was constantly being held at a level of perfection and Diego kept falling short, and so began the fighting.

By the time Five disappeared the rift between the two had become so great they could barely be together for a few minutes before a comment from either of them would result in a fist fight.

 

Allison and Klaus’ relationship always seemed so easy to me as one on the outside, it was built on shared interest, on a similar personality, and growing up I envied it. They had an almost sisterly bond that I just craved and wanted to be apart of so bad. At one point my room was next to Klaus’, before he became claustrophobic and our shared wall was knocked down to give him more space and I was politely forced to move, and at that point I could hear the two giggling together after lights out. They would get fashion and gossip magazines to read together, they would share clothes, and Allison, always getting what she wanted from our father, convinced him to get them both make up which they would then practice on each other.

I don’t know who I hated more when I saw them together in coordinated clothing and matching make up, Klaus for taking away my chance to have a relationship with Allison or Allison for choosing Klaus over me. I know though, that Allison wouldn’t have spent time with me, even if Klaus hadn’t been into the things she enjoyed.

As I stated before though, they could truly be awful to one another sometimes. They would fight, not coming to blows as often as Luther and Diego, but just as vicious. I was never sure what caused the arguments between them, only that when it happened everyone in the house knew about it. From the screaming between the two, the slammed doors, the horrible words they threw at one another, it practically vibrated the house. I believe it was their shared desire to be the centre of attention that brought them to blows more than anything, both too similar for their own good.

 

The friendship between Five and Ben both made the most and the least sense to me. They were both very alike and very different. They were both intelligent, Five more so than Ben, but Ben still miles ahead of the rest of us; they both, in a way, matured quicker than the rest of us; and they both always had each other’s backs. Five would always fight off Luther or Diego when one of them was putting Ben down, and Ben would always jump to Five’s defense and back his corner that he was indeed, better than the rest of them. On the other hand, Five was blunt to the point of being mean and Ben was always so kind; Ben loved company and Five acted like he despised us whenever we were together; Five was very confident in himself and Ben… well Ben wasn’t; and while Ben hated his powers, Five was always intrigued by his own and wanted to push the boundaries of what he could do, and equally had always been interested in exploring Ben’s iswell, in a way our father never had.

Outside of training the pair would lock themselves away together in their rooms or in the library, and while the rest of us were quite partial to our alone time, up until Five’s disappearance the two were near inseparable. This I believe, was more to do with Ben than Five, as mentioned previously, Ben was incapable of being on his own. That’s not to say I think Five resented Ben’s presence in anyway, after all Ben idolised Five, and I bet Five and his ego reveled in it. But Five was also overprotective of Ben and was kinder to him than the rest of us. They had their disagreements, but it wasn’t like the arguments the rest of our siblings got into, there was no heat to it and it was never personal, only ever a disagreement over a theory or an interpretation.

 

Then there’s me, my siblings largely ignored me, except for Diego. Diego only really started talking to me when the hatred towards Luther grew, even then I was his second choice after Mom, and he sometimes bypassed me in favour of Allison or Klaus. Still, I never turned him away, thankful for the company for once. Myself and Diego were very different, and he wasn’t always the kindest to me, nor to Ben, perhaps because we were the weakest; but we had a shared interest in music, and do not all friendships begin with a shared interest?

It wasn’t a friendship, but Ben was always kind to me, but then Ben was kind to everyone, which cheapened the sentiment a little. He would knock on my door, present me with a book he thought I might like and then return to Five’s side; it was small, but it was more effort than the majority of my sibling made with me.

**After Five Disappeared**

Five disappeared when we were thirteen, and no one took it harder than Ben, and I don’t believe he ever got over it. Ben was not perfect, he was the kindest of all my siblings and we all liked him, but like Allison, he could be incredibly selfish. At first Ben spent time crying in Five’s room, I remember me and my siblings standing at the bottom of the stairs that led up to Five and Ben’s rooms, separate from the rest of us, and debating if we should go and comfort him. In the end we decided not to, we were not that close. Then Ben sought to replace Five, as I have mentioned as Ben’s main fault, he could not and would not be on his own. This brought a dynamic change among my siblings as we entered our teenage years.

Ben started with Luther, who had become something of a lone wolf outside of training and missions, whether this was because he saw no way to integrate himself or thought himself above us, I’m not sure. What surprised me, was the kindest that Luther showed Ben when he sought out company. Luther had never been mean spirited, he was not always the nicest but I think this was more unintentional, a lack of social awareness, still it seemed odd the way he didn’t push needy Ben away. Luther was not Five however, he wasn’t one to sit in the library or ponder over theories of the fabric of reality, but Luther did let Ben read and talk to him until his heart’s content while he trained on punching bags. This Ben quickly grew tired of, and Luther’s company was gone as quick as it came.

Ben’s attempt with Diego was even quicker. Diego truly had a big heart underneath his tough exterior, this something I had always known and something Ben would later realise himself; but in the wake of losing his best friend, Diego’s sharper edges were more than Ben could handle. So one mean comment from Diego and Ben was leaving in search of someone else.

This search ended with Allison and Klaus, I do not have the full details on how this went down, but I do know Ben worked quick, leaving Allison bitter and Klaus abandoning his best friend to instead trail after Ben. Like I said, Ben was selfish, he didn’t care how he got his company, only that he got it in the end. That being said, Klaus and Ben bonded quickly, becoming just as inseparable as Ben and Five had once been.

 

Allison, now on her own, something which did not suit her need for attention, went on her own search for a new friend. I honestly believed at the time that she would come to me. That I would finally get my sisterly relationship, to paint each other’s nails, to do each other’s hair, to talk boys, and all other typical teenage girl things that I wasn’t necessarily interested in but wanted to experience all the same. I made an attempt to form a friendship with her following Klaus leaving her, but was met with the same thing I had always received from my sister, a closed door.

I wouldn’t have called it, and I don’t think the rest of my siblings would have either, but Allison found herself drifting towards Luther. She would join him in his personal training sessions, follow him out when he went to buy his monthly space magazine, and let herself into his room to listen to his vinyl collection with him. All the while, Luther would grimace, not as open to her company as he had been Ben’s.

I would have felt sorry for her, but Allison had no interest in hanging out with me, someone who wanted her around, just like Luther had no interest in hanging out with her. I tried to tell myself that it was her loss.

Then, there was a change in behavior between the two. Luther started smiling at Allison, Luther started following Allison where once it had been the opposite way round, and Luther started to genuinely want Allison’s company. I hadn’t really thought much of this change when it first happened, not until Ben brought it up one day. Myself, Klaus and Ben were studying together, and when I say together, I think the pair had forgotten I was sat opposite them as Klaus bugged Ben to help him. I had vaguely heard Allison and Luther giggling as they came down the stairs together behind me but didn’t look up until Ben spoke. “Don’t you think it’s interesting how Luther is now following Allison around,” he mused to Klaus.

“So what?” Klaus asked while rubbing out whatever half arsed answer he’d writing down in exchange for peaking at Ben’s answers and writing that instead.

“So… I heard a rumor Luther liked Allison.” The implications of this did not go over mine or Klaus’ head, and if you understand the nature of Allison’s power it won’t go over yours either. I remember locking eyes with Bens’ who own held a sadness while Klaus repeatedly denied the claim, saying that Allison wouldn’t do something like that. I’m still unsure to this day if Ben’s suggestion held any truth to it, but I always found it strange how Luther went almost overnight to despising Allison’s presence to myself walking in on them kissing in her room, and knowing my sister, it’s not something I would put past her moral capability.

 

Klaus and Ben together seemed happier than I’d ever known Klaus with Allison or Ben with Five, but I don’t think they were always the best influence on one another. Klaus by this point had already started drinking and smoking pot and by aged fourteen had got Ben trying it iswell, and I think Ben is largely to blame for Klaus’ darker descent. Of course, it wasn’t all bad. Ben had come out of his shell more with a larger personality like Klaus helping him, he now wasn’t spending all day inside reading books, but was instead sneaking out with Klaus and learning to speak up for himself. He developed a confidence, a sass and a mischievous smirk. Klaus during this time developed his own style, moving away from copying Allison and the mutterings I had gotten so used to hearing from him all but disappeared.

Ben was not as naive and innocent as my siblings liked to believe he was, something I know I was the only one to see in him. Like I had said, Ben and Five matured faster than the rest of us; by age ten Ben had already figured out his own sexuality and by age fifteen he lost his virginity long before the rest of us. I know these things because he told me, and maybe it is ill advised to share the secrets of the dead, of my brother who can no longer speak for his actions, but if I am revealing those of my other siblings, there is no reason he should get a free pass.

At aged fifteen Ben got the idea to go clubbing, telling me he’d read about them in a book when he came to me to borrow a shirt, and dragged Allison and Klaus along for the ride. I can without a doubt say that Allison got them in with a rumour, because while maybe Allison and Klaus could have past for eighteen, there was not a chance in hell just-past-growth-spurt-but-still-short Ben was. I know they got in, and I know they got drunk, because I heard them coming back to the academy in the early hours of the morning, Ben running up the stairs to grab Luther so he could carry a passed out Klaus to bed.

The clubbing is a large example of Ben’s selfishness and how I think he is to blame for the life Klaus has now found himself in. I think of Klaus, who had just started to struggle with substance abuse being dragged to a club, where the temptation was everywhere, and how following I never once saw him sober again. Of course, Ben had his own issues, his inability to be alone not being satisfied with just having Klaus attached to his hip saw him finding comfort in strangers who did not care about his age or his circumstances.

It is this side of Ben that probably lead to the change in relationship yet again between him and Klaus once they reached sixteen, from siblings to best friends to boyfriends.

 

Myself and Diego began to grow apart in our teenage years, we still had our conversations and when he needed the space he still sought me out, but it was a lot less frequent than it used to be. Diego instead began forming a closer relationship with Klaus and Ben, often joining them in whatever mischief they were getting up to. Looking back through my words, maybe this caused me some bitterness towards Ben for stealing Diego’s attention, similar to Allison when he had stolen Klaus’. Because truly I loved Ben, and I think this showed in no better way than how I started behaving after Five left.

Though I had never been close with Five, I don’t believe he ever really liked me, following his departure I found myself thinking of him often. I felt I had to do something, to ensure he came home, not for Five’s sake and not for my own, but for Ben. I glossed over it, but Ben was distraught after Five’s disappearance and it wasn’t a simple case of him moving onto another sibling for company, it did take it’s time. The crying in Five’s room was a frequent occurrence, even after he grew close with Klaus; it was not odd to see him red eyed and he straight up refused to use his powers, feeling unconfident without his partner to help him.

I made it my nightly routine to make Five his signature marshmallow and peanut butter sandwich, and to go around leaving the lights on for him, so he wouldn’t see the dark house, believe we were not in and leave again.

** After Ben’s Death  **

Ben’s death showed us just how little we thought of one another. There were always cracks in my family, they were there before Five disappeared and cracked further by the visible gap he left behind, but it was Ben’s death that made the illusion fall to pieces.

I don’t truly know how Ben died, but I know it was gruesome enough to shock Luther, Diego and Allison to the core when they returned from their mission. Luther had his arms wrapped around himself, shaking his head and muttering to himself, words about how Ben would be fine, we could fix him, and everything would be okay. True denial. Allison was in shock, blood soaked her hands which she held aloft in front of her visibly shaking and when our father relied the news to myself and Klaus she screamed and collapsed to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Diego, whom I had never seen so vulnerable, stood with eyes blown wide and silent tears tracking down his face.

I also know, my siblings killed Ben.

Maybe not directly but they’re all responsible. And they knew it too. Guilt and blame were the real culprits for what finally drove The Umbrella Academy apart. The fighting grew more intense and more frequent, and each of them drowning in their grief refused to help one another.

No one suffered more than Klaus, and it was one more selfish act from Ben to leave his already drug addicted partner to cope without him. I don’t believe Klaus and Ben were good for one another, not that I believe any of our siblings were good influences, we were all too damaged to be of any use to one another, but Ben let Klaus become addicted and when he died Klaus had nothing but drugs for comfort.

Everyone stopped speaking, outside of missions and training at least. Even Luther and Allison, any comfort they had found in each other fizzled into nothing. Diego no longer sought myself out, and Klaus was rarely seen. And then we left, as if the past eighteen years with one another had meant nothing.


	5. Separated from Society

If I had to say one positive thing about my father, it was that he let my siblings be who they wanted to be, even if this came with it’s own backlash. It was not necessarily I believe because he felt we could be whoever we wanted without shame, but because he simply did not care. We were not his children, we were not a representation of him, as long as my siblings harnessed their powers then what did he care who they were as individuals. Of what consequence was it to him?

Take my brother Klaus who wanted to wear make-up, wanted to dress in female clothing, who was at first more interested in doing typically girly things with Allison than spending time with the boys. Growing up, none of this behaviour was odd to us, we were separated from social stigma, and at least for me, it wasn’t until I left the academy that I realized the rest of the world might find his behaviour unusual. A good example of this I believe is a time I overheard Luther and Diego talking to Klaus and Allison about make-up, not perplexed at all that a man would wear make-up, but more by the idea of it as a whole. I recall Diego asking, “What does it do? Is it like a mask? Does it offer any protection while fighting?”

Homophobia was never a thing in our household, it was only a word Ben had learnt while he and Five made it a mission to discover why there were majoritively only male and female relationships in the novels he had read. I remember Ben describing the notion of it to us and myself and the rest of my siblings being entirely puzzled. Ben himself was attracted to men, it was something we knew from the age of ten with his off handed comment of “I think boys are a lot more attractive than girls” and that was it. There was no coming out, no announcement because why should there have been? Gay, straight, bisexual, they were all labels that weren’t used within the walls of the academy. Klaus was Klaus just like Ben was Ben, and there was nothing else to it.

What also never seemed odd to us was the relationship between Luther and Allison or Ben and Klaus. The attitude shift from Luther towards Allison had certainly been odd, but the lingering looks, the secretive hand touches and the kisses behind closed doors, we didn’t think anything of it. The relationship between Ben and Klaus was very different to that of Luther and Allison’s. The later seemed to that of a teenage crush, it never developed into anything, and the pair were always so secretive, as if they were trying to fool the rest of us into believing there was nothing going on.

Ben and Klaus on the other hand did nothing to hide the nature of their relationship from us. From Klaus shamelessly draping himself across Ben whenever given the chance, to them making out in the living room, the kitchen, on the staircase, never caring who saw them. I was jumped awake on more than one occasion by Diego, whose room was next to Klaus’, banging on his door and shouting at them to “have sex quieter or go to Ben’s room!” and would then roll over to go back to sleep without a second thought. Ben stopped referring to us as brothers and sisters when his romantic/sexual relationship with Klaus began, so maybe he saw something wrong it, the pseudo-incest. None of us are blood related and we were never really family, it’d be better to describe us as orphanages living under the same roof.

My life was filled with moments which are strange or wrong to me now looking back on it, some that make me sick to my stomach, but were perfectly normal as a child. The torture our father put my siblings through, them all being tattooed with the Umbrella Academy logo at aged twelve, Klaus’ drinking and drug use, Ben’s underage sex with strangers, Allison’s rumouring of anyone and everyone to get her own way, Diego being kept in a tank of water for days on end to see if he really could hold his breath indefinitely, or Luther being groomed into a mindless solider.

Pogo used to convince us that our father loved us, in his own way, and maybe he did. After all, he created our robot mother, who tucked us into bed, read us stories, hugged us, made us cookies when we were sad, who exuded love and warmth. How could our father have created her if he did not love us, at least a little?

Sir Reginald gave me my first violin, got me a teacher when I began to show an interest in learning it. He brought Allison and Klaus all the make-up and clothes they wanted. Gave Klaus a bigger room at his request. Encouraged Luther’s interest in space. Gifted Diego a bass guitar when the two of us spoke about being in a band. Despite his comments and dislike for Five, refused to believe he was dead and knew that he would return one day. Put up a statue in honour of Ben following his death.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves will never be a man I think back on fondly, but he is my father, and the only parental figure me and my siblings ever knew.


	6. The End of the Umbrella Academy

In the end, after our brother Ben had died, there was nothing really connecting us. We were just strangers living under the same roof, destined to be alone, starved for attention, damaged by our upbringing and haunted by what might have been.

Ben had always needed a partner when it came to missions, and maybe that was in part a symptom from his inability to be alone, but he just needed someone there to keep him calm. This had always been Five before he disappeared, and then it became Klaus’ burden. The day Ben died Klaus had been too hungover to go on the mission with his siblings, and this had made Ben visibly nervous with the anticipation of being on his own. He’d asked Diego if he would partner up with him for this mission but it was met with a rude comment and Diego had roughly pushed past him. I saw this from the doorway of my room, and remember telling Ben not to listen to whatever comment Diego had just thrown at him, and Ben had smiled weakly at me before telling me about a book he’d recently read about a classical composer that I might like. He’d promised to find it out for me when he got back.

Ben didn’t make it back from this mission and I never got to read the book he’d spoken about.

Myself and Klaus spent the few hours our siblings were away playing a game of Jacks on the staircase while we wanted for their return. Though I didn’t have the best relationship with my siblings I still worried about them when they went on missions and Klaus did too. I never had a relationship with Klaus, but one-on-one, when he had no one else to talk to, he could be pleasant company. Despite this, I spent the time with him that day wondering how Ben put up with him as he clearly didn’t know the rules of the game he had suggested and refused to listen to me when I tried to explain.

I was in the middle of scolding Klaus once again for blatantly cheating when our siblings returned. At first neither of us noticed anything wrong as Klaus jumped up, quick to go back to ignoring me, to greet his preferred siblings with normal over-the-top fashion while I cleared the game up. It was only when Klaus asked where Ben was that I bothered to lift up my head, dread settling in my stomach almost instantly as I took in their appearance. How Klaus didn’t realise straight away something was wrong I’d never know.

You already know the state they were in, Luther muttering to himself like a madman, refusing to meet anyone’s eye, Allison covered in blood and Diego wide-eyed in shock. Klaus screamed the question the second time when no one answered him. The tone at which our father told me and Klaus “Number Six is dead” was bluntly absent of emotion, but as soon as the word ‘dead’ left his mouth both Klaus and Allison let out a scream, one that rocked me to my core.

I watched as Allison fell to her knees and as Klaus’ hands came up to grip his hair in a way that must have been painful, but I was unable to move. In that moment everything became numb, the frantic screams from Klaus became muffled and I hardly felt Diego as he roughly pushed past me on his way retreating upstairs.

Ben Hargreeves, the baby brother of our family, was dead and none of us could quite handle it.

That night none of us spoke, nor for the next few days in fact. Allison did not leave her room, Klaus disappeared for nearly a week, Luther broke his hand finally punching past his limit and when I next saw Diego he had a new bruise on his face and a split lip, dealing with his grief in the same way he did all his problems, with a fight.

I wasn’t a member of the Umbrella Academy, and so I wasn’t privileged to the full details on how my own brother died. But as I have said, as far as I was concerned they all killed him, they were all responsible. I knew it must have been bad, after I heard father refusing to let Klaus see Ben’s body, “better you don’t tarnish your memory of him with the mess that remains”, and when Allison described it as a sight that would haunt her forever, “he was everywhere”.

The story Luther fed our father was that Ben had lost control of the monsters inside of him, they managed to break through his portal and ripped him apart. This I do not believe, not fully. There may be some truth to it, that the monsters coming through Ben ripped him apart, but there is more to it than that, as Ben wouldn’t have just lost control, not when he never had before. I was involved in a lot of our siblings training, Ben’s included. Ben was afraid of his powers but he was in control. What we called The Horror and Ben were simpatico, there’s no way they would have killed him on purpose.

When Klaus returned from wherever he had been in the days that followed Ben’s death he did so drugged out of his mind and wearing a disrespectful grin. It was Diego that argued with him first, saying that he needed to show Ben, his brother, his boyfriend, more respect. Ben wouldn’t want him acting like this. Klaus had replied with a drunken smirk, “Ben’s dead, Di, and we killed him, I don’t think he would have wanted that either.” It had shut Diego up, had him looking like a kicked puppy and furiously wiping tears away from his face.

Luther was the next to fight with Klaus on the day of Ben’s funeral, to which he had shown up drunk and kept stealing sips from the flask in his blazer. “How dare you show up like this! Did Ben really mean so little to you?”

Then it was Allison, two months later when Klaus claimed he’d conjured Ben. While the rest of us had sat in stunned silence Allison had stood and slapped Klaus around the face. She began to scream fury at him and Klaus snapped, shouting right back. It wasn’t long before my four siblings were fighting amongst themselves, accusing each other of having the hand in killing Ben, Klaus of seeking attention, Diego of never caring for Ben when he was alive so why did he now, Luther for failing as their leader and ultimately responsible for Ben’s death, Allison for hating Ben enough to kill him, and how none of this would have happened if Five were still here.

I look back on it now and wonder why we were all so quick to dismiss Klaus’ claims; Klaus, who’s powers were that of conjuring the dead, why would it have been so absurd? Of course, Klaus couldn’t use his powers when he was high, and he’d been more off his face since Ben’s death than he ever had before, but what if in that moment he wasn’t? What if he’d gotten clean enough to conjure Ben? I think I know now why we refused to believe him, and it was because it was easier. That the thought that Ben was still around, unable to be seen or touched by us ever again was too painful a thought and it just hurt less to attack each other instead.

 

Allison was the first to leave the academy, pursuing her dreams of being the centre of attention, of being a star. It was clear she wanted to get out and cut all ties with us while she did; Allison didn’t give us any forwarding address, no number in which to contact her, didn’t even tell us where she was going. Not even Klaus, who begged her not to leave, begged her not to abandon him iswell. Not even Luther, whom loved her more than I’m sure it was possible for him to articulate. The only reason I knew Allison was okay was when I saw her on TV a year later, staring in her first TV series.

Diego left next, he got himself a flat and a job, and once he reached eighteen he planned on joining the Police Academy. I was proud of him, going from a damaged child of The Umbrella Academy to an almost functioning adult. After Ben’s death he seemed to realise how much his behavior hurt others, the comments he used to casually throw at myself or Ben, how deep they could cut, and he seemed to generally want to turn things around. The two of us kept in contact for some years but ultimately drifted apart as we fought to forget our past at the academy. Diego got himself kicked out of the Police Academy for the same faults he had in The Umbrella Academy. Unable to follow direction, too reckless, too quick to solve problems with his fists and/or knives.

I left next, as soon as we hit eighteen. When I did I tried to encourage Klaus and Luther to leave iswell, before the academy killed them too. At this point Luther had stopped letting Klaus come on missions with him, claiming it was too dangerous and Klaus would only get himself hurt, so I don’t really know why Klaus still hung around. He claimed it was because he couldn’t leave Luther on his own, but the two hadn’t ever been overly close. When I left I didn’t move far, I remained within the city I hadn’t really grown up in, I started renting a flat, the same one I still live in now six years later and began playing the violin professionally. At my first concert I sent tickets back home for my four siblings and father, but none of them ever turned up.

Despite him saying he needed to stay for Luther, Klaus didn’t last much longer at the academy and I know this because a month later he turned up at my flat asking for a place to crash. I let him in, of course, despite everything there was still something inside me that saw him as my brother. It was the first and only time he ever stayed with me. I’m not entirely sure what Klaus has done with his life, but I can’t imagine it’s anything good. When I was still talking to Diego, he said he saw Klaus on the streets sometimes, sleeping in alleyways, throwing up on roadsides, just emerging from rehab, stealing from convenience stores. I wonder what Ben would think of him?

Then there’s Luther, who’s the last remaining member of the Umbrella Academy. I see him on TV sometimes, just after completing a mission that’s had a high news coverage. Ever the loyal solider.

I don’t know if any of my siblings have spoken to each other in the last seven/six years, whether any of them have returned home, whether any of them miss it.

If Five hadn’t disappeared, if Ben hadn’t died, would The Umbrella Academy still be together even now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell from my bias that Ben is my favourite character?   
> I tried to write as Vanya would have done, with some sort of disdain for all her siblings but Allison ended up getting the most of it, but I can also see Vanya having more anger at her than the rest.   
> I'm also part of the 'I don't hate Luther' club, so take that as you will :)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
